Underneath It All
by Sentinel Sparrow
Summary: a short oneshot. Draco is severely stressed out due to all the pressure his duties create, and he has no one to talk to either. Can Hermione help?DHr


Disclamer: I own nothing and noone. Satisfied?

My first actual try at romance. Don't be harsh!This story is BETA-ed, edited etc.by my friend _rhythm-devine_, who has even WRITTED some of the stuff in here!And also a thanks to _Fairy of Obsession_ who was kind enough to point out some mistakes!

nuff said, PLEASE review once you've read this!

Underneath It All

Was that a sob?

Hermione looked around. The lush area around her was deserted except for the wildlife. She turned back to her Potions homework. A minute or two passed and all that could be heard was the chirp of birds in the forbidden forest and the ripple of the lake next to her.

There it was again!

Frowning, she got up to investigate.

"You will do as you are told, or you will face the consequences, and we wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you, would we Draco?"He sneered at the boy.

"But Professor Snape I..."

"Silence! It will not go well with the Dark Lord if one of His is so cowardly and disobedient!"

Choking back a sob, Draco nodded, "I'll try."

With that he fled, running as fast as he could up the deserted corridor, out into the grounds and hid himself among the trees near the lake, glad that it was Easter and the population of the school was close to nil. He could not have anyone witness him in this state of weakness.

Silent tears poured down his cheeks. He didn't know if he could take it any longer. He was only a boy and he had to serve the Dark Lord. It put an extreme lot of pressure on him, pressure he didn't like, and now He was getting even more aggravated.

The curses pelted him like a monsoon shower every time he made a mistake. Voldemort was not known to forgive easily.

And his friends...or what he had in the name of friends; two of them barely had enough brains for an intelligent conversation, and the rest thought of his job as the greatest in the world. Had any of them actually known all he had seen, all that had been done...it disgusted him sometimes, all the violence.

Another cry escaped him. The emotional burden had grown more than the physical burden ever could, and with noone to help him through, Draco was lost within the dark crevices of his mind.

Suddenly, he saw her infront of him, brown curls slipping from where they were tucked behind her ears, confusion clouding those brown orbs. Hermione Granger. His long time nemesis. That was another one of his father's laws; muggleborns are scum, and deserve only to be squashed under the sole of one's shoe. Draco thought this rather foolish...though, well, but what did Draco's thoughts matter? He still had to follow his father's beliefs. And therefore she was an enemy, and you never let your guard down in front of an enemy and you never let them see your weaknesses.

He quickly wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve and sat up straight.

"What do you want Granger?"

"Are you okay?" she asked slowly.

Hermione hadn't been entirely sure what to think of her discovery. She had been walking around, looking for the source of her distraction, and had come upon Draco Malfoy sitting on the ground, tears pouring from his gray eyes, the lightest she had even seen, and his body visibly shaking. His face held a look that she had never seen before. He looked more like a little child who had just received a punishment for his naughtiness, than the nasty ferret that she had had to endure for the past 6 years. He looked more...human than she had ever seen him. It startled her.

But then his old cover was back. His face lost the emotion she had witnessed, and was concealed under a cold emotionless blanket. "Of course I'm okay. Why wouldn't I be okay?"

She was confused. "I just...heard you crying, so I wanted to make sure if everything was alright."

For a moment his face seemed to soften, but that moment was but a moment.

"I'm fine, "He snapped.

Her face hardened, "Fine," and she turned to walk away.

He suddenly felt a bit guilty of what he had just done. She had just been trying to help! It was about the warmest gesture that he had ever received from anyone, and instead of being grateful for it, he had pushed her away.

He would never admit it to anyone, or even to himself, but he'd always been jealous of them; the Golden Trio. They always had each other. They always had someone to help them through their worries, someone they could trust, someone they could talk to. He had never had such friends, never once.

"Wait," he called out to her. She paused in her steps and slowly turned around.

"I'm…"his voice faltered. He had never imagined that he would be saying this, "..sorry."

"What..."Hermione was dumbstruck. Never once in her life had she dreamt that Draco

Malfoy would be apologizing to her...and truthfully, she didn't even know what he was apologizing for!

"I'm sorry for being rude. I didn't mean it."

"O...kay..."she said slowly, still trying to absorb that for the first time in her life he had said sorry to her.

"Its just...I've had a lot on my mind lately and its gotten to me."

She was surprised yet again. He was actually behaving civil towards her for once, something completely unexpected.

She suddenly spoke, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Draco looked up. She had genuine concern in her eyes.

"You'd talk to me?" he asked, disbelief etched across his features, but there was also hope, hope that she wasn't just making fun of him and for once he could share his problems with someone who would actually understand them.

She said nothing, just came and sat infront of him, folding her arms in her lap and looked at him with hint of a smile.

"Well..."he started, unsure of what to say. "I can't really go into detail, because that would endanger your life as well as mine, but my dad and...You Know Who make me do things I don't want to do...terrible things..."his eyes darkened as he remembered the things he'd seen, the blood...the fear...the death... he shuddered, remembering a little girl whom he had seen being tortured and killed in front of him. He'd just stood there and watched the Death Eaters... watched as her frail body went limp, heard her cries till they sounded no more. That look in her eyes...

Her voice dragged him out of his memories.

"If you don't believe in what he does ..why don'tyou join the light side? We will protect you!"  
He laughed harshly at her words. She saw an angry fire in his eyes, so intense that it burned her.

"I can never leave the dark side. Noone can protect me from the Dark Lord. He never lets you go once you've been in as deep as I have. The only way I can leave is by dying."

He actually sounded scared, terrified out of his mind. She had never imagined she would see him in such a state; his ever perfect hair was messy and unkempt, his face tearstained, his cheeks red, his eyes swollen. He was a complete wreck, and for the first time in her life she felt sorry for him.

"You know, I never thought you could be like this, that you could have so much peer pressure,"she confessed." I always thought of you as just a mean Slytherin who loved the dark arts. I never imagined that your life could be like this!"

"My father beat me everyday, fed me all the shit that I had to do, all that I was forbidden to do. He told me that if I didn't obey his orders the beatings would be doubled, and he wasn't kidding! He never loved me like a son. I could never gather the courage to fight him, to stand up to him," his voice was low. It reflected all the fear and loathing he felt for the man he had to call his father. "And so I listened to him, I obeyed him to the letter, never let myself get friendly with people from the other houses, always mocked and insulted you. "

Hermione felt horrible about herself now. She had always detested Malfoy. She had never even thought of him as a human being! Now that she had found out so much about him, she was severely shocked!

"I'm sorry," she suddenly said. He looked up at her, confused.

"For what? Nothing was your fault!"

"I'm sorry for having misconceptions about you and I'm sorry for hating you."

His eyes widened in surprise and he was left almost speechless.

"It wasn't your fault. I don't blame you for it," he replied.

She smiled a little, and he grinned slightly as well.

"Want to be friends?"

The three simple words threw him completely off balance. He had never expected such a proposition from her...or anyone for that matter. He gazed into her eyes trying to decide whether what she had said was really the truth and what he saw convinced him of it, for in her eyes he saw compassion and warmth and that was when he knew that they could never lie..not to him...not to anyone…

Slowly, his hand met hers, and he smiled a genuine smile, for in that moment he realized that he had made a new friend.. a friend who was true, who would always be by, guiding him, and supporting him through all the bad times. He would never have to be alone again.

What dyu think? Nice enough?

PLEASE review people!

-Jen


End file.
